The Duke Page 17

“’Tisna necessary.” The words were all he could manage. His tongue was failing him again. Blast it, but pretty women would be the death of him. One pretty woman in particular. His heart, which was lodged firmly between his tight throat and other tight parts, was beating to quarters. Seeing her again, after only a day, was like finding wind on a dead sea.

  “What an affecting reunion,” Mrs. Tate said with a curl of her lip.

  “Mrs. Aiken,” Amarantha said, “may I introduce you to Mrs. Tate? You already know her daughters, of course.”

  Mrs. Aiken curtsied. “How do you do, ma’am?”

  Tate’s wife nodded.

  “And this is Mr. Bellarmine, who is cousin to Jane, Cynthia, and Iris.”

  He bowed.

  “I will help you settle in,” Amarantha said, drawing her friend toward the door to the kitchen. “Come, we will find the housekeeper.” They went out.

  “Mrs. Garland did not mention that the girl was a negress,” Mrs. Tate said. “How extraordinary that she sent you to fetch her, Your Grace.”

  “I volunteered.”

  “What a generous host you are, to be sure. Naturally Mrs. Aiken will lodge in the servants’ quarters.”

  “She is not a servant,” Miss Shaw said. “She had a seamstress shop in Kingston, Jamaica.”

  “How quaint colonials are,” Mrs. Tate said with pinched lips.

  “Miss Campbell, we did not expect to see you,” Dr. Shaw said. “It is a happy surprise.”

  “I couldn’t very well allow the devil to ride off from my house with the young woman under my protection, now could I?” she declared, eyes twinkling. “Iris Tate, here is your kitten.” She pulled forth the animal from her big bag. “Delightful creature. Tore up the draperies in the parlor only yesterday. I am happy to have this excuse to put it into your hands. Your Grace, I don’t care if you’ve got three dozen maidens locked up in the cellar of this castle, and if you lock up the rest of us there too. I am grateful for the rescue!”

  “Your servant, ma’am.” He bowed.

  She cracked a laugh. “Now, Elizabeth, have you found the bones that you were looking for?”

  “I have,” she replied.

  Behind Gabriel, Mrs. Tate whispered to her husband, “You cannot approve of this—this invasion of polite company.”

  “Keep your counsel, woman.”

  “I shall not. This is unacceptable.” She moved to Gabriel’s side. “Your Grace, your generosity to a—a person in need is all that is admirable. However, while I understand that in Miss Campbell’s unusual household my daughters have taken tea with Mrs. Aiken, you can see how deleterious it would be for them to be obliged to consort with her on equal social terms here. I am certain you understand.”

  “If it distresses you to share a castle with any o’ my guests, ma’am, you are welcome to leave. I can have the coach readied for you within minutes.”

  Tate cleared his throat and strode into the center of the hall. “Now, now, ’tis a merry party we are, with no’ a care in the world!”

  Gabriel’s housekeeper appeared. “Your Grace.”

  He went to her.

  “We’ve run outta beds. We’ve no more bedchambers either.”

  “Mrs. Hook, this castle once housed fifty men at arms.”

  “They’d have been sleeping on the floor o’ this hall.”

  “Mm. I suppose they would have. I will move to the gatehouse. It will solve the shortage.”

  “You mustn’t,” Amarantha said behind him.

  Her voice. Her actual voice. In his house. It could not be real. Yet here she stood, close enough to touch, with thorough charity in her eyes—for him.

  Judas. He’d best tear one of those suits of armor off the wall and don it.

  “I mustna what?” he said.

  “Your guests need you here,” she said. “Mrs. Aiken and I will go to the gatehouse.”

  “’Tain’t fitting for your ladyship to double up while the gentleman there has his own bedchamber.” Mrs. Hook glowered toward Bellarmine. He stood alone by the sideboard, staring into a cup of tea.

  “It is fine, of course,” Amarantha said. “I have spent the night in much worse straits and survived it.” With a quick smile, she disappeared into the stairwell.

  I have spent the night in much worse straits.

  Would that he had survived that night. Would that after it he had forgotten about the girl with the cloverleaf eyes who had held his hand and given him purpose that night. But then he would not now feel this lunatic elation, this sensation pressing at him that after five and a half years his life had finally begun again.

  He took his coat from the peg. “I’m off to the village to hire a footman,” he said to his housekeeper, “an’ a lad for the stable.”

  “From the village?” She crossed her arms. “I’ll no’ be giving orders to a peasant.”

  “Unless you prefer that I dress up in livery an’ wait on table—”

  “Your Grace!”

  “—you will do as I wish. We have a full house, Mrs. Hook. Let us acquit ourselves as gracious hosts.”

  By God, he felt good. A sennight earlier the world had seemed grim: insufficient funds to support Kallin; unproductive farms at Haiknayes; and a miserly merchant whose cooperation he depended on now hinting that his interests would forthwith require more commitment on Gabriel’s part.

  Now nothing seemed insurmountable. For the first time in years, he felt like he could conquer the world.

  “You saw him enter the bank.” Amarantha repeated Tabitha’s words as she set her pen, inkwell, and blotter on the dresser and closed her traveling case. With a comfortable cluster of furniture beside the hearth, the gatehouse was an ideal writers’ retreat. “But you are certain he did not see you?”

  “Almost certain.” Tabitha drew a needle through a length of linen on her lap.

  “You always sew when you are anxious.”

  Her friend’s hands stilled. “How can I have come this far, Amarantha, done what I have done, and yet remain so afraid?”

  “You are one of the least afraid women I have ever known, Tabitha. That you are willing, nay eager to tell the world your story proves it.” Amarantha sat down beside her. “Will you now tell me the man’s name?”

  Tabitha’s fingers curled around hers. “I cannot.”

  “You are safe here. Free.”

  “And Penny? Was she safe here?”

  Amarantha drew her hands into her own lap. “Women can be bound in many ways. You know that as well as I.”

  “But not men?”

  Amarantha could not resist smiling. “I suppose I don’t really care if men are.”

  “I know that is not true.”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “Amarantha.” Tabitha’s dark gaze was uncompromising. “Not all men lie.”

  “Only the men I mistakenly choose to love.” She took up her cloak. “I must go see how Libby’s work progresses. And find a rock with which to quash myself over the head for ever confiding anything private to you.”

  “He would not have brought me here if he did not admire you.”

  “I cannot, Tabitha.”

  “Cannot like a duke?”

  “Cannot trust a duke. That duke, rather. Libby says that her project should require at least a fortnight. You and I will have ample time to write, if you are able,” she added.

  “I am.”

  “Your memoir will be a fantastic success. Tomorrow we will begin writing again. I will send Mrs. Hook here with tea. Now rest until dinner.”

  The afternoon had lengthened and wind swept through the forecourt as Amarantha crossed it. Thomas Bellarmine stepped away from the shadows at the wall of the fortress and came toward her.

  “Are you hiding, Mr. Bellarmine?”

  “Not at all. There is already a man of mystery in the house. And what an extraordinary person the Duke of Loch Irvine is. I overheard my aunt saying that he had gone voluntarily to collect Mrs. Aiken and Miss Campbell from Leith.”
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  “He did.” And she still did not entirely understand why, except that he was a little mad.

  “Mrs. Aiken . . . She is a friend of yours from the colonies?”

  “She was a member of my husband’s church and attended the mission school. We grew very fond.”

  “I see.”

  The sour flavor on Amarantha’s tongue was familiar. In Jamaica plenty of people disapproved of friendship between whites and blacks. But in Leith Amarantha’s acquaintances were few and most were members of the abolitionist society.

  “I am off now to assist Libby,” she said. “Good afternoon, sir.”

  “I wish you would call me Thomas.”

  “Thank you, but, our nascent friendship notwithstanding, we are not well enough acquainted.”

  “I fear I am beginning to make a habit of unsuitable behavior,” he said a bit oddly, and looked at the ground.

  “Will you join me inside?” she said.

  “I—I will walk for a bit. In the garden, I think. It’s a tangle of weeds. No gardener, I guess. But I don’t suppose I’ll notice.”

  “Mr. Bellarmine, something troubles you.”

  “Mrs. Garland, how perceptive you are. Or perhaps I am merely a poor dissembler. I should beg Loch Irvine for lessons in adopting a mysterious façade. The ladies certainly seem to admire that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t think he adopts any façade. I do think he enjoys teasing.”

  “Teasing? Madam, it seems we know two different dukes.” He attempted a chuckle.

  Amarantha went to his side. “Thomas, I should very much like a stroll in the garden now as well.”

  He peered at her skeptically. “You are shivering.”

  “Then we must walk swiftly to encourage warmth.” She tucked her hand into his arm. “Lead the way, sir.”

  He squeezed her hand upon his arm. “What a fortunate man Reverend Garland was.”

  She was not in the hall. She was not in the upper chamber with Miss Shaw and Iris Tate. She was not in the library or in the south parlor. He went to the kitchen. She was not there either. Blast it, he’d swear the woman was intentionally eluding him.

  Perhaps she had gone for another solitary walk. To the church? He would pray for an hour on the cold stone floor. Two hours. However many she required.

  “Mrs. Hook, have you seen—” He could not bring himself to say the name.

  “The lady with the fiery hair, Your Grace?”

  He scratched his chin. “That transparent, am I?”

  “Mr. Ziyaeddin afforded me a hint o’ the direction o’ the wind.”

  “How helpful.” The late-afternoon sun was slanting through the kitchen door, which was thrown open to allow the breeze to cool the room. The place smelled of meat and spices. Pie. The scents of cooking here were like a welcoming embrace. In this kitchen his mother had instructed him in the manners he must possess to sit at great lords’ tables. When he had announced that he would never eat at table with great lords because he intended to be a sailor, she had smiled and said that after he grew weary of sailing the seven seas and returned to land again he would be glad to know how to comport himself among men of power.

  He wondered if the household at Kallin had enough supplies to bake pie. He would send a ham. Rather, three. And a sack of flour. And a dairy cow. If he could afford to purchase them.

  He had hired all the hands in the village for the trench. He would hire local men for the lambing. More for the shearing. Then to market with the wool. And the deal he was planning with Tate to share cargo space would net thousands.

  Yes, indeed, things seemed rosier all the time.

  With practiced ease and a massive knife his housekeeper chopped onions. She was a wretched baker, but a fully competent cook. Still, he should hire an actual cook—and release her again when he left?

  He wanted to stay.

  And he wanted her to stay: the lady with the fiery hair who turned him inside out even now, after everything.

  “Mrs. Garland be in the cellar, Your Grace,” his housekeeper said. “No’ an hour since when she came in with that upstart I gave her the key to the cellar an’ she’s no’ returned it yet.”

  “Upstart?”

  “Aye, an’ him all cow’s eyes at her.”

  Bellarmine.

  “Odd she’s not come back up yet,” Mrs. Hook said. “But she dinna seem the sort o’ lady to forget returning a key.”

  He thought of the brass key in the reading room, buried between her breasts.

  Snatching up a candle, he swung open the cellar door and descended the narrow stairs. Beyond a shelf of wine bottles, he found her standing before the iron bars of a cell. Only the light of late afternoon that poked through a window illumined her face.

  “No maidens,” she said.

  “Disappointed?”

  “Vastly. Why haven’t you converted these cells into storage spaces?”

  “You’ve a particular fondness for storage cellars? I wonder why.”

  “I am asking why you still keep a jail in your house.”

  “I’ve no’ lived at Haiknayes since I was a lad. But if you wish, I’ll order the place renovated immediately. Once I’ve a bit o’ ready cash.” He could not manage to stanch his smile.

  “No ready cash?”

  “None to speak of.”

  “So you are in need of funds at present?”

  “Aye.”

  “I see.”

  “What do you see with those cloverleaf eyes, lass?”

  “Cloverleaf? Don’t be absurd.”

  “I was being poetical.”

  “I think I prefer your taciturn prose.” A hint of pink stained her cheeks. “Thank you for bringing my friends here. I am grateful.”

  “In fact you are relieved. Who is Mrs. Aiken?”

  “A friend from Kingston.”

  “Why is she in Scotland?”

  “She sailed here.”

  “By God, you’ll make me pull teeth, willna you?”

  “Her business is none of yours.” The blush beneath the freckles darkened.

  For five and a half years he had dreamed of this, her flushed skin, its soft, radiant beauty. Now here she was, within reach.

  He should resist.

  Greater men than he had fallen to much lesser temptations.

  Lifting his hand, he touched her—barely—stroking the line of her delicate jaw with one knuckle. Her lashes twitched.

  Judas, she still felt like beauty, perfect beauty. Five years ago she had been hot, damp, the tropical heat and her arousal radiating from her. Yet now her skin was cool.

  Still, he was halfway to an erection.

  Upon a little breath, her lips parted, offering a glimpse of her pink tongue.

  Three-quarters of the way.

  “Lass,” he said none too steadily. “You can trust me.”

  “I really cannot fathom how you imagine that I would.”

  “She is safe here. But she would be safer if you told me her troubles.”

  “Why are you touching me again?”

  “I’ve a list o’ reasons, beginning with you’re so damn touchable.”

  “I wish you would not,” she said, turning away from him and putting her back to the cell.

  “Tell me Mrs. Aiken’s trouble,” he said.

  “Why do you wish to know?”

  “I want to help you.”

  She looked at him. In the cloverleaves were defiance and anger he had never seen there.

  “When after a considerable struggle Tabitha was able to purchase her own freedom,” she said, “she married a freedman. A year later, he was murdered. His murderers said they did so at the behest of a man who wished to have her as his mistress. They said that if she did not obey, that man would wrest her to another island where no one knew of her freedom, and keep her there. She escaped onto the first ship that would conceal her, and she sailed here. She saw this man at Leith two days ago and fears that he has come to Scotland in search of her, and that he will
find her.”

  “I willna allow it.”

  “You have no authority over her.”

  “Lass, I’m a duke.”

  “And she is a free person. What’s more, I don’t believe your business partner’s wife would be particularly pleased over your championship of a former enslaved woman.”

  “Mrs. Tate can go to the devil.”

  “Cynthia Tate certainly thinks they all already have.” A glimmer entered her eyes. “And possibly Jane too.”

  “Children will fear the dark,” he murmured.

  “I think you revel in people believing you are a demon.”

  “’Tis what it must be.”

  “Why? To accomplish what?”

  “Let me help Mrs. Aiken.”

  “It is not your trouble to solve.”

  “Allow it to be.” He took a step toward her.

  “What do you hope to gain from—” She threw up a palm. “Don’t—What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get closer to those lips.”

  “Those lips?”

  “I have had so many fantasies about those lips.”

  “Fantasies?” she said as though she were swallowing the word.

  “Aye, fantasies. Your lips on mine, an’ elsewhere. On me. They entrance me.”

  She leaped backward, putting a yard between them. “How can you be this way?”

  “Entranced by your lips? It requires no effort whatsoever.”

  “Stop. I am grateful to you for going to Leith and bringing Tabitha here. And your kindness to Libby is commendable. But I do not understand your interest in the particulars of my friend’s situation. Given all, it would be witless of me not to believe that you are doing all of this in order to wrest something from me.”

  “Something?”

  She pinned her lips tightly together. Then she muttered, “I am no longer a downy girl.”

  “I believe you have insisted on that three or four times already. Perhaps five.”

  “Have you not listened to anything I’ve said? Have you not heard my words about Penny, searching for a man who obviously abandoned her? Or Tabitha, who fears a man so greatly that she has fled the only home she ever knew?”

  “You believe your fate will be the same?”

  “Of course not. My skin gives me protection that theirs does not. But I am not naïve. No longer. In this world, women are prey if they do not protect themselves when they are able.”